1 USGS and Tribes Work Together to Gain Water Knowledge USGS scientists work closely with Tribal leaders around the country to address water availability issues related to quantity and quality on Tribal lands. In general, USGS coordinated efforts with Tribes span a wide variety of activities across the Nation, involving, for example, monitoring within an extensive network of USGS streamflow gages and groundwater monitoring stations; training; data management; Geographic Information Systems (GIS); quality control; development of models and decision-making tools; and scientific research on how natural, climatic, land use, water use, and other human factors can affect the water cycle, water quantity, and quality. The USGS information is used by Tribal managers to address such topics as water rights, water supply, flood-warning predictions, contamination, and sustainability of critical habitats and health ecosystems. Tribes also depend on USGS science for Tribal sustenance and sovereignty. Ms. Sharri Venno, Environmental Planner with the Houlton Band Maliseet Indians in Houlton, Maine stated: USGS monitors streamflow at more than 530 sites on Tribal lands, and more than 1,160 and 1,720 sites within 5 and 10 miles of Tribal lands, respectively. "Our Tribe relies on USGS streamflow gaging activities to maintain aquatic habitat and the seasonal harvesting of a variety of native medicinal flora of importance to our tribal lifestyle and long-standing Tribal ceremonies. In addition, USGS streamgages, such as on the Meduxnekeag River in Eastern Maine, provide us valuable real-time information on river flow and water-quality that is critical to native fish habitat, including for spawning Atlantic Salmon, a native species the Tribe hopes to restore to healthy populations.” USGS streamgaging on the Meduxnekeag River in eastern Maine helps the Houlton Band Maliseet Indians manage and restore native fish habitats, such as for spawning Atlantic Salmon.
22
Embed
USGS and Tribes Work Together to Gain Water Knowledge › wzukusers › user... · 1336 and Doug Ott, [email protected], (208) 387-1335). Montana and Wyoming The Wyoming-Montana Water
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
1
USGS and Tribes Work Together to Gain Water Knowledge
USGS scientists work closely with Tribal leaders around the country to address water availability issues related to
quantity and quality on Tribal lands.
In general, USGS coordinated efforts with Tribes span a wide variety of activities across the Nation, involving, for
example, monitoring within an extensive network of USGS streamflow gages and groundwater monitoring stations;
training; data management; Geographic Information Systems (GIS); quality control; development of models and
decision-making tools; and scientific research on how natural, climatic, land use, water use, and other human factors
can affect the water cycle, water quantity, and quality. The USGS information is used by Tribal managers to address
such topics as water rights, water supply, flood-warning predictions, contamination, and sustainability of critical
habitats and health ecosystems.
Tribes also depend on USGS science for Tribal sustenance and sovereignty. Ms. Sharri Venno, Environmental
Planner with the Houlton Band Maliseet Indians in Houlton,
Maine stated:
USGS monitors streamflow at nearly 531 sites on Tribal lands, and more than
1,160 and 1,724 sites within 5 and 10 miles of Tribal lands, respectively.
USGS monitors streamflow at more than 530 sites on Tribal lands, and more than 1,160 and 1,720 sites within 5 and 10 miles of Tribal lands, respectively.
"Our Tribe relies on USGS streamflow gaging activities to maintain aquatic habitat and the seasonal harvesting of a variety of native medicinal flora of importance to our tribal lifestyle and long-standing Tribal ceremonies. In addition, USGS streamgages, such as on the Meduxnekeag River in Eastern Maine, provide us valuable real-time information on river flow and water-quality that is critical to native fish habitat, including for spawning Atlantic Salmon, a native species the Tribe hopes to restore to healthy populations.”
USGS streamgaging on the Meduxnekeag
River in eastern Maine helps the Houlton Band
Maliseet Indians manage and restore native
fish habitats, such as for spawning Atlantic
Salmon.
2
Idaho Scientists from the Idaho Water Science Center, in
collaboration with the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho and
other state and federal agencies, are evaluating
hydraulic and geomorphic conditions in the Kootenai
River in north Idaho. The science will help to enhance
spawning substrate for the endangered Kootenai
White Sturgeon, which will help to improve spawning,
early life survival, and recruitment in the Kootenai
River. (Access study description, publications, and
posters) The joint effort involves collection of
information on streamflow characteristics, channel
morphology, and sediment transport characteristics in
potential spawning reaches of the river. Multi-dimensional
Read about activities with Tribes in YOUR Region and State…
Northwest Midwest
Idaho page 2 Michigan page 14
Montana/Wyoming page 3 Minnesota page 16
Oregon page 4 Nebraska page 16
Washington page 6 North Dakota page 17
South Dakota page 18
Northwest Climate Wisconsin page 20 Science Center page 7
Alaska page 8 East
Maine page 21
Pacific Mississippi page 22
California page 9 New England page 22
Nevada page 10
Southwest
Arizona page 10
New Mexico page 12
Oklahoma page 12
Utah page 13
USGS and the Shoshone-Paiute Tribe unravel fish from a seine net for mercury tissue analysis.
Wind River in the area of a former uranium processing facility on the Wind River Reservation, 1987 through
2010. A publication is in press (Ranalli and Naftz, U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report
2013-5218). (Contact: Tony Ranalli, [email protected], (303) 236-6915)
USGS (including the Wyoming-Montana Water Science Center and USGS Crustal Geochemistry and
Geophysics Center) and the Fort Peck Tribe began a study in 2003 to delineate the extent of brine
contamination in the East Poplar oil field using helicopter-borne electromagnetic (HEM) surveys, mapping of
oil field infrastructure, borehole geophysics, and water-quality sampling at selected wells (USGS Report).
The USGS report identified enriched water in the City of Poplar wells in oil-field brines. Studies continue to
USGS spearheads training at the Salish Kootenai College, covering a variety of topics, including for example: evapotranspiration estimation tools using remote sensing; three dimensional hydrogeologic modeling for understanding snow cover, water availability, groundwater mining, and groundwater contamination;
and data network designs for discrete and continuous data.
in Boulder, Colorado is in its 10th year of a highly
successful partnership with the Yukon River Inter-
Tribal Watershed Council (YRITWC) as described in a
Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in 2009 to
conduct a long-term water-quality and climate-change
program in the Yukon River Basin.
Together, the USGS-NRP and the YRITWC with
assistance from the Alaska Science Center and field
offices have maintained a water- quality program for
the Yukon River basin focused on monitoring the
health of the Yukon River and its major tributaries
(Fact Sheet). The partnership manages a vast
network of trained volunteer water technicians from
over 60 Tribes and First Nations across Alaska and
Canada known as the Indigenous Observation
Network (ION). (Fact Sheet)
Water-quality field training is jointly organized by USGS and YRITWC on the Tanana River at Nenana, Alaska. Training involves volunteer water technicians from villages across the Yukon River basin.
0
200,000
400,000
600,000
800,000
1,000,000
0
3
6
9
12
15
18
DISC
HA
RG
E IN C
UB
IC FEET P
ER SEC
ON
D
DIS
SO
LV
ED
OR
GA
NIC
CA
RB
ON
IN
MIL
LIG
RA
MS
P
ER
LIT
ER
)
USGS DOC YRITWC DOC Q
Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) is among many water-quality constituents that are essential to aquatic health in Alaska’s rivers and streams. Scientists anticipate that DOC may decrease with climate warming, which increases the respiration of carbon on land and thereby decreases the export of carbon to streams and rivers (Striegl, et al. 2005). USGS and the YRITWC therefore measure concentrations of carbon as part of the joint climate-change research. Shown here are concentrations from 2000-2008, indicating no apparent increasing or decreasing trends in stream concentrations in the Yukon River at Pilot Station, Alaska.
Collaborative efforts with the Walker River Paiute Tribe focus on streamflow, continuous water-quality monitoring,
reservoir levels, canal seepage losses, and water-quality sampling during irrigation seasons. The information helps
the Tribe track and manage upstream water delivery that is needed to sustain supplies and fisheries (required to be
25 cubic feet per second). In fact, USGS science played a major role in developing a river accounting system and a
conveyance agreement with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation for conveying Walker River flows through the
Walker River Indian Reservation.
USGS also works with the Duckwater Shoshone Tribe to measure flows at a large regional spring.
Arizona
USGS works with 10 of the 19 federally recognized Tribal governments in Arizona to assist Tribes with monitoring and assessments that are used by Tribes to address such topics as water rights, water use, hydrologic conditions, and water-quality issues, such as mining. (Access summary of USGS Tribal programs in Arizona). In total, USGS and Tribes monitor surface water at 20 sites, sediment at 2 sites, and groundwater at 2 stations.
USGS also provides critical training and materials to Tribal personnel in the collection of hydrologic data including
surface water, groundwater, and quality of water, analysis of surface-water records, and other field techniques. A
step-by-step field guide was developed for the Navajo Department of Water Management that describes procedures
for operating, maintaining, and collecting surface-water data on the Navajo Indian Reservation (Contacts: Bob Hart,
USGS partners with the Hopi and Navajo Tribes on a long-term
groundwater monitoring network in the Black Mesa. A long-term
available supply of water is critical to the Tribes to meet their
needs for public supply, irrigation, and livestock. In addition,
sustained springflow and streamflow are important to their culture.
The hydrologic data collected in this monitoring program are
needed to understand the available water supply and the effects of
past industrial and current municipal groundwater withdrawals.
In 2005, USGS began a long-term partnership with the Bureau of
Indian Affairs Navajo Region on a project to monitor
groundwater in the Coconino aquifer near Leupp, Arizona. The
primary goal of the effort is to track long-term changes in
groundwater levels, water use and water chemistry and
establish baseline groundwater conditions in the aquifer and
other water-bearing zones before additional significant
development in this area. Groundwater resources of the
aquifer in the Little Colorado River Basin are already being
affected by groundwater withdrawals for municipal, agriculture,
and industrial water uses throughout the upper and middle
parts of the basin (Hart and others, 2002). Proposed
groundwater development from the aquifer in the Leupp area
include: 1) an alternate means of supplying water for the
Peaboby Western Coal Company mining operation on Black
Mesa, 2) future supply for the City of Flagstaff, 3) future supply
USGS and the Navajo Nation performed a “channel geometry” survey at their streamgage near Lukachukai, Arizona. The survey was part of a two day training course held in July 2013 through TESNAR on indirect measurements of streamflow using a “continuous slope-area” streamgage method for the Navajo Nation. This method will help to improve stage-discharge relations at the streamgages that are subject to flashy high-flow events.
USGS and the White Mountain Apache Tribe constructed a “continuous slope area” streamgage near Whiteriver, Arizona. Training held in July 2013 will help the Tribe improve indirect measurements of streamflow using the continuous slope-area (CSA) streamgaging method for streamgages that are subject to flashy high-flow events.
Black Mesa
The USGS Western Geographic Science Center located at the Flagstaff Science Campus has been working closely with both the San Carlos and Navajo tribes on grassland conservation and the utilization of modern grazing practices that minimize overgrazing. Remotely sensed data and imagery from satellite and on the ground sensors are used to collect information on the condition of pastures that can then be used to schedule pasture rotations. Overgrazing results in the significant reductions in perennial native grasses and forbs, and results quickly pastures being over-run with non-native grasses, weeds, and cacti. Once non-native grasses, weeds, and cacti establish in grazing areas, it is extremely difficult
Oklahoma The Oklahoma Water Science Center is developing
groundwater models with Tribal Nations including with the
Citizen Potawatomi Nation, the Caddo Nation, and most
recently the Osage Nation. These efforts serve water
resource needs within Tribal Nation jurisdictional
boundaries and help to support the information needs
identified in the Oklahoma Water Resources Board’s
recently completed State Water Plan.
A “State of the Science” effort with the Osage Nation
began in July 2013, which employs the latest
advancements in USGS technology to assess water
types, fresh and saline, and to help quantify
connections between water supply and demand. The
study incorporates conventional hydrologic data
gathering along with high-resolution aerial geophysical
USGS and the Osage Nation established a four-year water resources study. “This is an important study which will help establish water conservation and responsible water planning in the Osage,” said Osage Principal Chief John D. Red Eagle.
The mission of the Osage Nation’s ENR Department is to protect human health, the environment and Osage cultural resources, and to protect and develop natural resources, while preserving the diverse human cultures and animal and plant ecosystems existing in the Osage.
associated trace elements in groundwater USGS and the Ute Indian Tribe collect a surface water quality sample in the Strawberry River (Site number 09288180) near
USGS works with the Houlton Band Maliseet Indians on the Meduxnekeag River in eastern Maine. Activities may extend regionally to assess impacts of climate and hydrology on plants.